Richard Symonds, who had accused Tory co-chairman of creating a fake identity
on the online encyclopedia to boost his reputation, is a Lib Dem activist,
Telegraph reveals

The Wikipedia administrator who accused the Tory co-chairman, Grant Shapps, of creating a fake identity on the online encyclopedia to boost his reputation is a leading activist in the Liberal Democrats, the Telegraph can reveal.

Richard Symonds admitted today that he had been “chastised” by other administrators at Wikipedia for not checking with more people before banning a user who he claims is Mr Shapps, or someone working for him.

Mr Symonds also admitted that he had briefed The Guardian newspaper, which broke the allegations.

Mr Shapps has furiously denied the allegations, saying they are a political smear by his opponents. On Wednesday afternoon Mr Shapps said: "This has been the most bonkers story of the election campaign which has left the Lib Dems with a lot of explaining to do."

Senior Lib Dem figures led a chorus of mockery against Mr Shapps within two hours of his supposed fake identity – or “sockpuppet” – being revealed yesterday. The party’s former leader, Lord Ashdown, issued a joke press release defending Mr Shapps as a “wonderful human being and literary great” who has “never done anything dodgy.” Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, also mocked Mr Shapps today.

Wikipedia administrator Richard Symonds

The Wikipedia account in question – “Contribsx” – was yesterday banned by a site administrator known as “Chase me ladies, I’m the cavalry” who told The Guardian that the account was a “sockpuppet of Grant Shapps’ previous accounts on Wikipedia ... and based on the evidence the account is either run by Shapps directly or being run by someone else – an assistant or a PR agency – but under his clear direction.”

The Contribsx account was used to make favourable alterations to posts about Mr Shapps and detrimental alterations to posts about his Tory colleagues.

However, the Telegraph has established that “Chase me ladies, I’m the cavalry” is in fact Mr Symonds, a leading activist in the Tower Hamlets Liberal Democrats. In his Twitter profile, Mr Symonds describes himself as a “Liberal Democrat to the last.” He has written letters to newspapers, including The Telegraph, in his capacity as a Liberal Democrat activist.

A Lib Dem spokesman denied any contact with Mr Symonds over the story.

Mr Symonds is a staff member at Wikimedia UK, the charity which promotes Wikipedia in the UK. He is listed as one of about 50 “functionaries,” senior administrators described as having “privileged technical access” on the site.

However, he has today come under attack from other users of Wikipedia for acting without sufficient evidence. In a discussion about his actions on the site, he admitted: “You're right that it's impossible to definitively link a Wikipedia account to a person short of that user admitting it themselves. I can't, therefore, say whether this was Grant Shapps or not, but there is lots of evidence for people to look at…

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“I have already reported myself (and all of this) to the functionaries and they have chastised me (and continue to do so) and suggested that I would have done better by running this investigation past the functionaries list, rather than past the few administrators I did. They are right.”

In another discussion Mr Symonds admitted that he had briefed The Guardian, saying: “A Guardian journalist contacted me with concerns that Contribsx is a sockpuppet of Hackneymarsh [another user allegedly linked to Mr Shapps]….I started investigating (independently of the Guardian) whether Contribsx could indeed be a sockpuppet of Hackneymarsh, and the evidence is pretty conclusive.”

Wikipedia administrator Richard Symonds appears in a BBC video

Mr Symonds did not respond to emails seeking comment. Wikimedia UK said he was not at work today.

A spokesman for Wikimedia UK, Stevie Benton, said that to the best of his knowledge, Mr Symonds had not briefed the Liberal Democrats about his actions. “I would be incredibly surprised if he had done and would say it’s out of character,” he said. “I’ve worked with Richard for three and a half years and his politics have never entered into anything in that time.”

He said that Wikimedia UK did not oversee content on Wikipedia itself and anything done by Mr Symonds would have been in his spare time. He admitted, however, that Mr Symonds had spoken to The Guardian.